You know how you get going on, say, two projects, both on size 2s, which means that you can't cast on any more socks because your third pair of 2s are in New York with your best friend who simply hasn't sent them back yet, even though they've been sitting on her dresser since late February, and you don't want to harass her for it because there was that time 2 years ago when she visited you and left her black kitten heels in her apartment and it took you MONTHS to get around to sending them back to her, so you feel like an asshole asking her to get a move on already, but you don't want to buy a whole 'nother set of size 2's, except that you know that, embarrassing as it may be, you could so be content with FOUR sets of circular 2s, because FOUR sock projects on the needles at once is actually a totally reasonable situation in your eyes, but there's that little voice in your head that's like "Um, hello little missy, you have THOUSANDS of dollars in educational debt to pay off, you don't need to spend another $13 on a FOURTH set of size 2 circs" so you decide that you need to just finish up the projects that you have going, even though they are both seemingly in that stage where you knit on 'em for like 5 hours and you haven't even gained a half inch of progress, and besides it's summer, so what are you gonna do with warm wooly socks anyway, but then you sign on to Rav as soon as you get into work (because you desperately need to be writing that spec that your boss wants you to finish two weeks ago so CLEARLY, Rav is the place to go) and check out the new Friends Activity tab which, even though you NEVER go there, you just heard that Casey added cool new features to it, and you see these that Ariel queued, and you realize it has been AGES since you knit up a lacy pair of socks and you MUST KNIT THESE NOW with your jade STR?

Yeah, me too. I'd just go out and buy the needles, except that no place near me sells my favorite size 2 circs. Sad. Womp Wooooomp.

Ariel, from above, and I had a little dye day a couple weeks ago, during which we dyed a buttload of undyed sock yarn and roving with natural dye extracts. I wanted to wait on this until I had more pics of the final products to show, but I haven't actually gotten around to even washing the yarn, and it has now "air cured" for two weeks. I'll wash it this weekend, I 'spect, but I just wanted to throw a shout out to my homes Ariel, and post some of the pics that I have.

This is what we started with:


Ariel dyeing with madder, which goes on babypoop brown, and sets a gorgeous dark reddish color:


Note the baby bottles- a clear stroke of genius on my part when we couldn't find squeezy bottles anywhere in the state of Massachusetts (read: the Woburn Target)

A sock blank, pre-set:




The plan is that when I knit this into socks, they will stripe more or less the way they were dyed. We'll see.

My kitchen when we were done (one point for every beer bottle you can find!)




Aaaand finally, this was my FAVORITE SCORE from the whole experience: dyeing some Lucy Yarn (her undyed sock yarn, merino/tencel superwash. Effing AMAZING) with some Brazilwood bark that Ariel generously purchased for me on a trip out west...



...which I proceeded to BURN TO A CRISP IN THE GODDAMN MICROWAVE:



Aaaand a picture of me, after I realized the extent of the damage, and that I would never be able to knit anything with that yarn:



Womp wooooomp.

After an hour of true, genuine moping around and sad, heavy sighs, Ken distracted me with dinner and a series of Entourage episodes (lately, he's used Entourage to cheer me up after several sad events, and might I say it really works! Especially when combined with ice cream. The ice cream is important.)